Other forms: scrapped, scrapping, scraps, scraping, scraped
A scrap is a small leftover piece of something bigger — a scrap of paper with a phone number on it, scraps of meat pushed to the side of the plate. Small enough that nobody planned for it.
With no article in front of it, scrap means waste material kept to be melted down and used again: a scrap yard, scrap metal, an old car sold for scrap. The verb follows from that, so to scrap something is to throw it out or call it off — they scrapped the ship and they scrapped the plan are both normal English. There is a separate informal noun as well: a scrap is a short untidy fight, the kind that starts in a playground and ends in two minutes. And 'not a scrap of' means none whatsoever — not a scrap of evidence, not a scrap of sympathy.
1nounscrapA small piece left over from something larger.
“He wrote the address on a scrap of newspaper.”
2nounwasteWaste material, especially metal, collected to be melted down and used again.
“The engine was beyond repair, so the whole car went for scrap.”
3verbridTo get rid of something as useless, or to abandon a plan.
“The council scrapped the parking scheme after three months.”
4nounshortA short, untidy fight or quarrel.
“The two of them had a scrap behind the bike sheds.”
scrap is a leftover piece.
Scrap arrived from Old Norse skrap, which came from skrapa, 'to scrape, to scratch', and beyond that a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to engrave'. Swedish still has skräp for rubbish. A scrap is what the blade scraped off and left behind.
Proto-Indo-European
*skreb-
Proto-Germanic
*skrapōną
Old Norse
skrap
Middle English
scrappe
English, today
scrap
Built from
From Middle English scrappe, from Old Norse skrap, from skrapa (“to scrape, scratch”), from Proto-Germanic skrapōną, skrepaną (“to scrape, scratch”), from Proto-Indo-European skreb-, skrep- (“to engrave”). Cf. Swedish skräp (“garbage”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA